A warm welcome to this one-off session on the pensions dashboard. Our first panel looks at it from the industry perspective, We will start with some introductions, please.

My name is Brian Byrnes. I am the Head of Personal Finance at Moneybox. Moneybox is a digital saving and investing app serving 1.5 million customers across the UK.

Good morning, everyone. I am Richard Smith, independent consultant. I have had various roles on dashboards, two being that in 2023 I did a research tour of the five countries that have had dashboards for decades, and in 2024 I have been the volunteer chair of an informal group of 15 firms that all want to offer a regulated pension dashboard. We called it PDOC, the Pensions Dashboard Operators Coalition.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Kim Gubler. I chair the Pensions Administration Standards Association. I also sit on the Pensions Dashboards Programme former steering group, now the advisory group. I am also an independent trustee of a master trust, which is preparing to connect to dashboards.

Good morning, everyone. I am Maurice Titley. I am commercial director of a technology and consultancy firm called Lumera. We are one part of a partnership that has an integrated service provider, which I hope to tell you more about in this session. I chair the PASA dashboard’s working group that Kim just referred to, supporting industry in their endeavours.

Thank you so much. I will put the first question specifically to Richard, but if anybody else wants to chip in, that would be very welcome. Could you explain for the viewers at home what a pensions dashboard is and why the UK needs them?

Yes, of course. Most people, your constituents, carry great fear with pensions. Dashboards are fantastic online services that help with this and so much more. They let you see information on your different pensions—state, workplace, personal—together. In testing, I have personally witnessed the visceral reaction of people to dashboards. When they see on their phone a simple list of pensions, the response is, “Oh, my gosh, this is fantastic. When can I have it?” Plus regulated dashboards are on existing familiar apps from trusted brands that people already use quite often. Just to bring that to life a little bit, I am a Lloyds Bank customer of 40 years. I love its banking app. I will very likely look at the pensions dashboard that Lloyds Bank adds to its app. My 26-year-old daughter, by contrast, has a lifetime ISA with Moneybox, as it happens, so when Brian’s firm puts a pensions dashboard on to the Moneybox app, which she likes, she will probably look at all her pensions there. So there are lots of different dashboards for different consumers, all showing the same data but bringing that data to where they already go. Those regulated dashboards are, quite rightly, incredibly tightly regulated by lots of different bits of government regulation to protect consumers. That warrants a bit of explanation, Chair. I wonder if I should pause there in case there are any questions on what I have said already before I press on with that.

No, what we will do is we will go round on that, but it would be useful if you drew on your experience internationally and how the UK compares, if that is okay.

Absolutely, yes. I will definitely get to that very shortly. There is tight control of regulated dashboards but also tight control on what you can do next. The FCA is allowing regulated dashboards to offer highly regulated “post-view” services after you have viewed your pensions. These help different consumers in all sorts of different ways specific to their own personal pension data. Brian will probably say more about this but, for example, you can click through to get regulated advice, or you can get through to FCA’s new targeted support, which can be a game changer. I am sure you will hear more on that from the subsequent panels. Crucially, you can click through to take action to improve your pension position. That is key. There is also another dashboard from Government called the MoneyHelper dashboard. That is a universal service so obviously it cannot support the customer-specific onward action in the way I was just describing. You can see MoneyHelper as a basic back-up dashboard for the important but quite small minority of people who don’t use any financial apps. I think 87% of people use one sort of online banking or another. All dashboards, though—it is very important to understand this—show the same data, because they connect into the same data retrieval service. In my written evidence to the Committee, Chair, I linked out to a short explanatory video that my son made. I have brought a screen grab from that along today because it is quite a complex ecosystem, and I find it helps to have a picture in front of you. It is in the shape of an hourglass. It is an industry-government sandwich. At the top you have consumers, your constituents, accessing their dashboard of choice—for example, Brian’s or another firm’s. Whichever dashboard they use, they connect into the middle, which is the Government secure data retrieval service, including the critically important gov.uk One Login identity service, which I am sure you will hear more about later. Then, at the bottom, there are all UK pension scheme providers, which are compelled by law now to make their data digitally searchable. That is Kim and Maurice’s side of the fence. Delivering all the layers of the ecosystem is key. In my experience, very few individuals actually understand the whole ecosystem. Why would they? There are very different disciplines at each of the different layers, if that makes sense. However, the consumer journey is obviously vertically through it. This comes, Chair, to the first point about international experience. Do you want to come in with a question?

I was just going to ask what the current challenges and opportunities are for the industry in this regard.

The key challenge is collaboration. The key message I heard from all the continental teams—for the transcript, that is in Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands—is that you won’t get dashboards done unless there are truly humble, trusting, collaborative relationships between all the relevant parts of government and all the relevant parts of industry. I have some more to say about whether we have that level of collaboration yet, but maybe we will come on to that. The opportunity is the private sector dashboards. I have some usage stats that may be relevant. Overseas, at the top of the ecosystem, top of the hourglass, private sector dashboards are by far the most used. In Norway in 2024, the Government dashboard, the MoneyHelper equivalent, was used 1.3 million times, but private sector dashboards, though, were used 35 million times, so 30 times as much. It is instructive to look at some existing UK usage figures. You can already look at your state pension today online on gov.uk. DWP tells me that has only been used 6 million times since last April. For context, the working-age population is about 42 million. People do not go to government sites to look at these things unless they are particularly interested, maybe as they are getting towards state pension age. By contrast, Lloyds tells me that its app is logged into 6 billion times a year—broadly, about 300 accesses from their 20 million customers. Now, I am not going to look at my pensions 300 times a year, because that would be bonkers, but I might look at it three, four, five times a year because I am already going to the app. Regulated dashboards on highly used apps like in Norway dramatically increase usage of dashboards and the pension awareness that follows.

Thank you, I will bring in Kim, who has been trying for a while.

Thank you, Chair. To be honest, I think many of us underestimate how difficult it is for people to know the value of their pensions. It is almost like they are trying to create a picture without knowing how many pieces of the puzzle there are. What dashboard does is it creates that one place, whether it is a good answer or a bad answer. If you ask anyone out in the street how many pensions they have and where are they, a lot of them will tell you, “I think I have some. I know where one or two are.” What dashboard will do is create that central place alongside the state pension. Richard and I do not necessarily always agree with that, but for many people that will be enough. It may not be the best answer for everybody but we just have to think about dashboard. It is not just a technology project; it can be a catalyst for financial empowerment. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but we have to look at where we are going with this.

Baroness Altmann suggested recently that industry dashboards would not be ready by next year. Is that your view?

The majority of large private sector pension schemes are going to be connected by spring, late spring. The experience is that these schemes, as Richard was saying, at the bottom have done an awful lot of work to be ready to connect. The connection is the beginning of that journey. The user testing of the MoneyHelper dashboard and PDP is probably going to start happening from May, June. It will have to iterate because we won’t know until we know what behaviours it drives. As Richard would say, when people start seeing real data, their data, we are going to have to nuance. For example, we had a day looking at error codes. These at the bottom of this hourglass, they have to be able to say if there are issues with the estimated retirement income, with the values that they have to put back. There were some where we were saying, “Well, we don’t know how people are going to react to this.” It is only going to be evident once people start actually seeing those.

Thank you for coming today. The Chair has already touched on this. We have this deadline of October 2026 for the ecosystem of these dashboards to be fully up and running. Are there any costs that have not been foreseen? Are we confident that this is all in line for the costs? I also wanted to understand, as far as the game plan for achieving this deadline is concerned, are you confident that that is laid out so that can be achieved without slippage? Slippage is clearly our enemy in a lot of areas, but do you fear slippage in relation to this October 2026 date for a fully functioning system to be up and running?

One part of the answer to the question is around the way that schemes and providers need to connect into what we call the dashboard’s ecosystem. The key thing about this, as you can see on Richard’s hourglass, is that there is no central database that holds information about people and their pensions. The way this whole approach works is you have to have connection technology that, when a saver uses a dashboard, supports searching every single place where it might find a pension, and then, when a saver wants to see the results of that, they need to see all those pensions appear. They could be coming from 10 different places, 10 different pensions, and it needs to look like a dashboard, not like a slowly chugging away comparison site or something that pulls them in one by one. This connection technology is being created by industry and it is called ISPs; it has been provided commercially for lots of different schemes, or some providers are actually connecting themselves. The progress is good. People have put a lot of effort into what they have built. I think there is a big question as to how it is all going to work, because the design has been down to the individual parties that have built them. There are about 20 parties doing this connection. In terms of the readiness for October 2026, the parties that have the connection technology are testing the interfaces with the pensions dashboard ecosystem with the PDP team at the moment. There is a little bit of a queue to get through that, but that will clear out long before October 2026, so that will be in place. I think there will be a need to make changes over the course of the testing of the actual MoneyHelper dashboard, where we are going to have use of dashboards. There is no doubt that the data providers and the connection technology providers are going to have to make changes. It is important to be aware of that. We work in a very collaborative way with the PDP team to have our say in terms of what we think the changes should be and how they can be applied in a quick and efficient way over the course of the next 18 months.

You mentioned the ecosystem being done by October 2026. Could I add, maybe as a quick bridge to Brian, a slight refinement? Thinking again about the hourglass, which I always find incredibly helpful, building from the bottom, the legislation to compel schemes to make their data available is done. I did the data standards five years ago on the programme and then Government spent five years making the legislation to compel schemes to do that. Schemes are now very ready, as Kim says, and technology providers, ISPs, are connecting that into the central digital architecture, as Maurice says. Capgemini has built the central digital architectures, so that is done. That is all that has to be in place by October 2026. One key lesson from the continent—it doesn’t make me very happy to say this—is that every other country got the whole ecosystem working with a very narrow set of data at the bottom with two or three pension providers; then they got the whole vertical ecosystem working. They got all the teething troubles sorted, including testing with real consumers, as Maurice and Kim have been talking about. When they had sorted all those problems, then they broadened the data coverage. In the Netherlands, they mandated the data coverage across the whole industry. What we have done in this country is mandated the whole of the industry to connect from next month into an ecosystem that remains untested with live consumers with real data. That is a real problem and I think that will remain a problem for testing. There is one other thing before I hand to Brian. There is the MoneyHelper dashboard and, as I have articulated already, most consumers want to use a regulated dashboard on an app they frequently use and trust, and we are nowhere near getting those regulated dashboards done.

In terms of our connection up to the central digital architecture ahead of the deadlines, Moneybox launched our pension only in 2020. We are a digital first company. Our data is relatively clean and simple compared with some others out there. We need to connect by end of April this year and that is going well. We are using an ISP and that is relatively simple. The key question is what comes next in terms of when consumers access the Government website and then potentially commercial pensions dashboards going forward.

Yes, there will be slippage.

If I could just interject, what we have found is in connecting through the integrated service providers to the central digital architecture, ultimately what people are looking for is their estimated retirement income. What we are finding is that the data of a lot of the medium and smaller-sized schemes is not fully digitised. PASA did some research and it found that only 40% of schemes are fully digitised and the rest is a mix of paper, digitised and scanned PDFs, which all need human intervention. A scheme connecting to the central digital architecture doesn’t mean that a person is going to have a great experience. The majority of members are in large private sector schemes, but because you are seeing all your pensions in one place, you need to have the same user experience across those. We do think quite a lot of data cleansing work will need to happen afterwards.

One example of what Kim is referring to is the data that is required to do what is called matching. When you get the request through the search for pensions, the personal details—first name, surname, date of birth—need to be compared with the data that is held on the pension administration platforms. That data can quite easily get out of date; surnames change, addresses change. They can be used in matching as well. National Insurance number is an optional item to provide. That is useful if it is provided, but we do not know how many people are going to actually provide that. How that matching works is key. What we do not want, as an industry, is to have people phoning up saying, “I couldn’t see my pension at all on the dashboard.” There should be solutions out there to help with that from a technology point of view but also in terms of improving the quality of those personal details that are held, ahead of the big usage of dashboards that is coming.

To follow on from some of the things you have already been saying, the Government have decided to prioritise the MoneyHelper scheme over commercial dashboards. Do you think that is the right approach? Kim, would you like to start off?

The panel knows that I have this real issue with the word “commercial”. To me it is private sector dashboards and a public sector dashboard, a bit like we have NHS and we have private health. They serve different needs but they do the same thing. As Richard will say, because of some of the uncertainty—for example, the design standards are as yet undefined—a lot of the organisations that would normally build one of these private sector dashboards are finding it very difficult to create the business case to be able to finish that and push that through. It is almost plea to Government. We have the commitment from PDP and DWP that commercial dashboards, private sector dashboards, will happen, but we need more certainty so that those organisations will build them, so people can look on their Lloyds app or their NatWest app or whatever.

My answer to your question about prioritising MoneyHelper will be a caveated yes. My understanding is that by prioritising the MoneyHelper dashboard, we will get that launched sooner than if we try to do both the MoneyHelper and the private sector dashboards at the same time. As Mr Smith has pointed out in his evidence, the priority now is getting a dashboard launched. We have 12.5 million people in the UK undersaving for retirement before housing costs in retirement are factored in. We have £31 billion in lost pension pots across 3.3 million lost pensions. That, I think, is a bit of an understatement. The most powerful thing that we can do for people is to reunite them with pension savings that they have already made. That will not take any further contributions from their pocket. It will not take any further contributions from the Government pocket. My answer is a caveated yes. The caveat is we need to be doing the work around the private sector dashboards at the same time as we are trying to launch the MoneyHelper dashboard. We cannot launch the MoneyHelper dashboard and then turn and say, “Okay, what about these private sector dashboards?” We need to be doing the prep work at the same time.

I was advised before coming that it is good to not always completely agree. I do agree with everything Brian said, but another key point is adequacy. The important thing to understand is total estimated retirement income. I have nine pensions, so Kim and the other schemes will all calculate at the bottom of the hourglass my estimated retirement income from nine pensions. They all get sent through and then a dashboard like Brian’s or Lloyds’ or whatever is only allowed to do one sum, which is add them up to get estimated retirement income. There is an example on the left of the diagram, so £2,500 a month. That enables people to say, “Could I live on that in retirement?” About half of the working-age savers in this country are going see a number that they do not think is adequate. Adequacy is a very personal thing and we know the Government’s review is paused. MoneyHelper cannot help you with a click through to do something about it. Private sector dashboards are, by the way, not commercial. One of the 15 PDOC firms said to me, “Richard, this is so tightly regulated, it is about the most non-commercial thing our firm could do.” They are not commercial but they are going to enable firms to help their customers. Private sector dashboards will enable you to click through and top up your contributions, to do something about the inadequate total estimated retirement income. I worry that if we have an extended period of MoneyHelper, we are just creating more fear by showing people total ERIs that are not enough to live on, and not giving them help to do something about it.

Do you think if it prompted you to take advice or guidance that that would be sufficient? I know that is not an actual top-up.

A lot of people said to me, “What do the continentals do? What do they do next?” The great unknown here in the UK is we do not really know. That is why the testing is so important, to understand the real consumer reaction. There is another important point about the continental aspect. The five countries I visited all have what I call a Bismarckian system, whereby pillar 1 or state provision is a much higher proportion of average earnings, if that makes sense. In Belgium, 91% of retirement income on average is state, is pillar 1, so the vast majority. In contrast, the UK has a Beveridgian system. State pension reaches £12,000 a year next month and average earnings is £36,000, so about a third. You could live on £12,000 a year but not very comfortably. The Dutch team said to me, “Richard, the Dutch dashboard for the last decade has shown Dutch citizens are broadly going to be okay. Your dashboards in the UK are going to tell people broadly they are not going to be okay.” We need to support people in every way we can in taking next steps, but we do not really know how and when they are going to do that. That is why we need to get on with the testing of MoneyHelper and private sector regulated dashboards as soon as possible.

To go back to serving different needs, certainly in my discussions with the MoneyHelper dashboard team, they are seeing the people that ultimately use the MoneyHelper dashboard will be people that maybe want to click through and have debt advice. They will use other of the MoneyHelper services, whereas maybe the people that are using the private sector dashboard may have different requirements. I have to come back to this. You were talking about collaboration and we clearly have good collaboration between PASA and PDP, MoneyHelper and the like, and the regulators. However, some of the things that I have been asked to say is that, for example, with those schemes at the bottom of the hourglass, they are mandated to show all pensions, all parts of a scheme that connect at the same time. That includes additional voluntary contributions. They are regulated generally by the insurers, which are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Some of those insurers are being very slow at engaging with the schemes. A lot of schemes are getting very nervous that they will not be able to connect at the same time. At PASA we have created a toolkit to try to support them in this, but it is something where greater collaboration is needed. WE know that the Pensions Regulator is very aware of that but we need to make sure that the Financial Conduct Authority also works with the regulator.

That is a very good point. They are our next panel.

We will have to be reasonably swift because I am conscious of time. Brian, this is a question for you. Moneybox is developing its dashboard right now. What has your experience been of that so far? Is there anything the Government or MaPS could do to help you? Also, you are having to answer to two sets of regulation, one by MaPS and one by the FCA. Is that a problem for you?

On the first question, I would love to sit here and say that we are building something right now, but we are not building anything. We have no ability to do that with how much uncertainty is there at the moment. Moneybox builds on 8 or 16-week cycles depending on the size of the project. This would be a large project. Last year I had our development teams and our product managers coming to me saying, “Can we get started on anything from a commercial pensions dashboard?” I just had to keep saying, “No, we don’t have the certainty. We don’t have the timelines.. They have stopped asking me now, basically. We are not building anything. There is a lot of meetings, lots of reading and lots of waiting for final data standards and design standards. We are supposed to get a timeline on the back of the work that is happening with KPMG at the moment. My concern is we do not have a launch date for the MoneyHelper dashboard, so I am sceptical that we are going to then get a subsequent launch date for private sector dashboards. If we do, it might be some stage quite far into the future—if I am being optimistic, 2029, 2030. If we get that, I would be pulled off this project. Moneybox would turn to me and say we cannot dedicate time to this over the next two or three years. The Government, the regulator, all the various bodies involved would lose lots of the opportunity for collaboration because people just would not be able to dedicate the resource. On your second question about the multiple bodies involved, we would like it to be less onerous as it is slightly confusing. There are not just the two that you mentioned; there are maybe 10 acronyms that we could say and they are all incredibly interrelated. I have been very close to this over the last year to 18 months and I have still had to rely on Mr Smith at times to explain to me the various interdependencies between all the various entities that are involved in this. One thing that is quite onerous—potentially, depending on your point of view, rightly so—is the way that the FCA will regulate private sector dashboards. That is incredibly restrictive and onerous. Mr Smith has given some examples of logging into Lloyds or logging into Moneybox and seeing your various pensions. It will not be that seamless or that smooth. Moneybox has an app. We have a website where you can log in, you can see all your accounts and you can take various actions. We will need to build a separate, completely separate, environment, a separate dashboard that people will have to log into separately from their Moneybox account. They will go into that. That is where they will see and view only their pensions information. What you can do in that separate environment is incredibly restrictive. It is absolutely no transactions whatsoever, so no consolidation. For example, you can’t top up your pensions. You can do a small amount of, again, very restrictive so-called post-view services, so some retirement modelling, but essentially you can take a peek in there and then you come back into the service that you were using with Lloyds or Moneybox. You cannot copy and paste anything from there into the Moneybox environment. That is the restrictive, onerous part. I am very conscious of my wording here. I can understand how we have gotten to that point, but I would just like to make the Committee aware that it is not a case that you would log into Moneybox, Lloyds, and suddenly see all your pensions there. It is still going to live in a very separate, restricted world.

That was Brian being optimistic but, frankly, it breaks my heart to share my view with you. I do not think, even though your constituents desperately need and want them, that we are going to see any FCA-regulated dashboards. It is so sad. There was a large-scale LinkedIn poll that finished last week: 40% of industry respondents do not think we will ever see them.

Okay, John, I think you have one more quick question, haven’t you?

No, that was very illuminating. Thank you very much.

Richard, you have done research on the pension dashboards in other countries. You have mentioned a little bit about the different styles of pensions across those other countries, but are there elements of things that we could learn from them in terms of how they have implemented it and how they have enabled people to take control of their pensions?

Sure. Super quick, first, there is so much to learn. This is why I put all my research findings in the public domain on my blog. By the way, could I put on public record a huge thanks to the five continental teams? They were so generous with their time, learnings and insights. I thought five countries, I would just pull out five verbs and say a sentence about each of them. It is the acronym CLASS. C is collaborate—I think I mentioned this already. They all said you have to collaborate. I am just holding up the purple brochure of minPension, which is the Swedish dashboard. On page 1, just for the transcript, it is a very simple pie chart of two semi-circles. I said to Anders Lundström in Stockholm, “Why have you got such a boring pie chart on page 1?” He said, “Richard, that is the most important page of this whole report. You will only get dashboards done if you have joint decision making and joint funding of dashboards.” That is exactly what we do not have in the UK. Industry is pretty much funding the whole thing in this country, either directly or through levies to MaPS, and has zero control over joint decisions. The big decisions like the reset in 2023 and MoneyHelper first, which I don’t necessarily disagree with, they are not collaborative decisions, they are not even consultative decisions. We do not have the collaboration that all the continental teams said we need to have. L is launch. They said, “Richard, you spent far too long talking about dashboards.” I think they meant the UK; I don’t think they meant me personally. They said, “You just need to launch because then you will start getting live user feedback and then you will be able to iterate and go on forever.” The Danish dashboard is 25 years old and it has got better and better and better. It is on version 7 now. A is amplify. Do not just have one dashboard. Enable private sector apps and you will dramatically amplify the reach of the service and the user feedback you get, as we have already touched on. S is segment. When you launch you will understand that not all consumers are the same. Of course, they are not, they are widely different. The onward support needs they have are widely diverse. You obviously can help those in this country with regulated dashboards, if we ever get them. The other S is the other thing you will learn: simplify. You will need to understand that most people want very simple online interface. This is an interesting stat. They gave me reams and reams of statistics of which users at what time of the day spend how much time on which pages of their dashboard. It was a lot. Most users do not click through beyond the home page where they see total ERI. Most people just want to know, “Am I going to be okay?” This is the major issue in this country on adequacy. At least half of users on UK dashboards are not going to be okay. Therefore, we need private sector dashboards to help them do something about that. If we manage to collaborate, launch, amplify, segment and simplify, we will have done a great thing for 42 million working-age adults.

One of the things that this Committee has looked at is pension adequacy. It is something that we have been focusing on. It was really if there was anything from the international examples about whether or not adequacy changed as engagement with dashboards improved.

Adequacy was not really the major driving force in the continental countries because of the Bismarckian systems. You can even see that on the graphical images. State pension is the major bar and then workplace or pillar 2, if you like, is just a little bit on top. It is like a top-up. In Belgium, most people just take their workplace pension as a cash lump sum because it is relatively small. They do not use it as a recurring income because they use state, if that makes sense. That is true of most of the continental countries. There is a real irony that the countries that did not really need dashboards because of adequacy did them 20 years ago. The one country that really needed to do them—the previous Labour Government in 2002 tried to do this and I was involved then. I have been on dashboard 23 years and we need to get them done. The great thing, because of total ERI on the home page, is dashboards finally end the invisibility of inadequacy.

That is very helpful. Thank you so much. That concludes the questions that we have. Very unlike this Committee, we have actually finished early. If there are any remarks you want to make in literally 30 seconds, you are very welcome to do that.

I have a very quick one. The whole point about seeing whether the pension is going to be adequate or not relies on all the pensions being found. Matching is important and so is getting all those schemes onboarded, so that coverage is there when people start looking at it.

As both Richard and Maurice said, what for me is the important thing about pensions dashboard is it will hold a mirror up to people’s pensions. We do not know where that will lead us, but it has to start somewhere and it will iterate.

Thank you. This has been a short but very informative panel. Thank you so much. We really appreciate your time. Witnesses: Sarah Pritchard, Nike Trost, David Walmsley and Lucy Stone.

Moving swiftly on to the next panel, we will start with some introductions, please.

Nike Trost. I head the department that looks after asset management and pension policy at the FCA.

Sarah Pritchard, Executive Director, Supervision Policy and Competition with executive responsibility for pensions at the Financial Conduct Authority.

David Walmsley. I am Director of Supervision, responsible for trusteeship and governance administration, which includes dashboards and DBE regulation.

I am Lucy Stone. I lead the Pensions Regulator team that is helping schemes prepare for their dashboard duties, but we are also putting in place the compliance and processes to monitor and, if necessary, enforce compliance.

Thank you very much. The first question is from Jo Baxter.

The FCA and the Pensions Regulator are responsible for ensuring that pension providers make their data available to the dashboards ecosystem. Can you explain a bit more about your role in regulating providers?

From the FCA perspective, as you may know, we are responsible for regulating the conduct overall of about 42,000 firms to enable a fair and thriving financial services sector. In the pension space, you are quite right, we are responsible for making sure that the pension schemes connect, which is an important part of making sure that dashboards can go live. We are responsible for around about 150 providers that will be connecting when the dashboards launch.

At the Pensions Regulator, we regulate occupational pension schemes. There are 2,700 of them in scope to connect to the dashboards and we see dashboards as a transformational opportunity to connect those people with pensions. Just to set the scene, there are three key points I would like to make. This is really complex. The industry has achieved a lot, but there are 2,700 schemes that need to connect and there are 48 million records within those schemes that we need to connect. Data quality is critical for the success of dashboards, and connection to the dashboard is just the start. There is a staggered approach to connection, which was set by DWP. Everybody must connect by October 2026, and our role is setting the expectations for the whole of the 2,700 schemes, providing the guidance so people can meet our expectations. We have met and engaged with the largest 80 schemes directly. They represent 75% of all the members who are connecting. In summary, it is connecting to the dashboards, ensuring that they are returning good quality data back to the dashboard to help connect and help people make decisions and then to stay connected to their dashboards.

We heard from the previous panel how important the connections and data will be. I am conscious there are many different bodies with responsibilities in this space. Can you tell us a little bit more about how well you are working together, particularly with the pensions dashboard programme?

I would say we are working well together in the short answer. The long answer is we are all very clear on our respective roles and responsibilities and we have multiple mechanisms to make sure that we are working well together. For example, we meet regularly on the design of the ecosystem, on policy matters, on the evidence to support the progress of the policy, and on communications and engagement. We have all these meetings. In fact, the FCA and the Pensions Regulator attend the pensions dashboard’s programme board. One thing I want to highlight is it is not just co-operation for co-operation’s sake, it is actually really constructive. There is real transparency and openness, including on risks and issues, which is one of the things that often does not happen. That is working well. With the FCA, because we both regulate different parts, we are quite used to working together and making sure that as far as possible we align our approaches, because regardless of whether you have a personal pension or an occupational pension, you are entitled to the same saver experience. One final point I want to touch on is that it is not just a matter of co-operation with these various bodies; it is also about how we work with industry. My colleague David has mentioned that we meet with the largest firms, but we also meet with administrators, trustee firms and legal firms. There are lots of mechanisms for us to engage with industry, including with the parties you saw earlier, so we can understand what issues people are facing and we can come up with collaborative solutions.

That is right. There are formal mechanisms in place and regular informal dialogue between the teams, and that is part of wider collaboration with DWP and TPR regularly, in this case with PDP as well, of course. As TPR, we check in regularly with industry bodies as well.

If I just add one point, fundamentally the co-operation is essential because if you are a consumer, it should not matter who regulates the pensions. To make the dashboards a success, all the data needs to be connected so that is at the heart of everything and the heart of our focus to make sure that from a consumer perspective we are acting joined up, together as one, to support the success of the dashboards.

I was just going to follow up on that. You probably heard the evidence from the first panel, particularly what Richard Smith was saying about the importance of collaboration and the comparisons with other international examples where we were not collaborating as much. What do you think we can do to improve that collaboration?

Our landscape is incredibly complex relative to those international experiences as well. As we have said, we have 2,700 schemes just on our side, and that ranges from a very big commercial master trust through to a scheme that is run by the payroll department of an employer. It is incredibly complex and there are lots of other parties involved, such as the ISPs that are building the connections, the administrators who are preparing the data, the trustee firms, the legal firms, the advisers. We do try to reach across the landscape and have regular engagement across the piece. We try to engage with everyone. There are lots of formal mechanisms. Things have been consulted on extensively. I have been working on dashboards for a long time and there has been at least four or five pieces of work that have been consulted on in that time. I think collaboration is working well. That is not to say there aren’t always ways to improve. We will reach out to the industry and find out what more we can do. In fact, it is a question we ask, for example, in our surveys and our webinars, “What more do you need from us?”

We have about 150 firms that have about 30 million pots to connect. About half of those firms, representing about 90% of pots, are starting to connect from the end of April. They are in that early tranche and we are very confident that they are making good progress towards that connection. There is obviously time until October next year to iron out any residual issues, but we think there is very good progress being made.

Sorry, are you talking about the deferral of the legislative deadline?

There are two mechanisms. One is that, up to August, you could apply to DWP to defer the connection deadline. You would have to ask DWP on the precise numbers. I do not know if I am allowed to share them because we have quite a restricted information regime, but we can follow up. I understand that the decisions are imminent on those. What I can say is that we are not significantly concerned that it is going to impact timeline. David, did you want to come in on the occupational pension scheme? Nike talked about the personal pension scheme but we also have a nice picture on our side.

Thank you. There are 2,700 schemes that we are responsible for connecting to that dashboard. As I said, we have engaged with the largest 80, which are 75%—we have communicated with them all, by the way—and through those meetings, communications and issuing surveys, the vast majority are expected to connect in line with the staging profile. There are very small numbers that will not connect, but there are very good reasons for that; for example, they are moving to an insurer and they just will not exist as a scheme by October 2026, or they are changing administrators and might not meet the staging profile but still expect to meet the October 2026 deadline. The vast majority are expected to connect.

As regulators—I am sure the FCA will agree with me—we consider burden in everything we do. We want to promote growth and we want to promote innovation but we also, obviously, have to balance that with making sure that the market is delivering in the interest of savers. For dashboards, the system is partly designed with this burden in mind. I will give three examples. One is that the staging profile we have been talking about, the order in which schemes connect, was designed partly so that the schemes that are most able to connect are going first. Those that need more time have more time. That was part of the design, very explicitly. The second one is that it builds on existing disclosure requirements. For most schemes, this is data they should already have. There are some schemes for which this is not the case. Finally, we talked a little bit about the engagement we are having with industry. We are talking regularly about particular issues that are causing concern and then we can see whether we can help or draw collaborative solutions. I would not say there has been pushback. I think industry is as enthusiastic about dashboards as we are. There is always challenge on the detail.

There are some. A lot of them are quite niche and detailed about how they apply. This is where we work with organisations such as the Pensions Administration Standards Association to put out guidance to have consistency in the industry. We will have regular meetings and take things away. We have committed to being very pragmatic because we understand this is a big programme of work for industry. We are working through these issues as we go along. As Nike mentioned, there are informal and formal mechanisms to feed these points in. We are trying, as far as possible. I would say it is around the detail and we are working through that with industry.

Yes, of course. Just as a starting point, I think it has been touched on in the earlier session, but the digitisation of records has been a huge issue for some. Overall, once those records are digitised, the benefits should unlock future innovation and support greater consumer engagement with pensions, which is, I think, the prize that we are all hoping for at the end when dashboards go live. The decision to mandate all schemes to connect is very much Government through legislation. Our role here is to support that, making sure that that regulatory regime to require all the 150 FCA schemes to connect—we have been looking to implement the Government legislation. As Lucy has already touched on, the information that will be displayed should be information that is available through the annual benefit statements. Some of that was to make sure that the information was proportionate and that the burden was not too great for firms, but it is important to acknowledge that the digitisation piece has been big for firms. Just on that readiness piece, we are seeing all the right signs that firms are starting to want to connect. They are requiring registration codes from us. They are asking us to provide the information that we need to provide in order to validate their connection in. What we do know is that firms are very keen to know the date of launch because they want to put consumer-facing teams in place for when they get the queries in for partial matches, or they get queries in from consumers. If that is driving greater engagement, they want to make sure that they are ready and they are standing ready. We know that is something that firms are thinking about actively but it is difficult to plan for, absent a date.

Let me start with that. At FCA we are fully committed to supporting that objective, and we set out our response to the Prime Minister’s ask for steps that we could take to support that in a letter on 16 January. Taking a step back, in terms of pensions, what do we hope that these dashboards will drive? We have been in support of dashboards since 2015 and we believe it is critically important to drive greater engagement by consumers with their pensions. If I give some statistics, 75% of defined contribution pension holders aged 45-plus, based on our Financial Lives survey in 2024, did not have a clear plan or did not even know that they had a choice in some of the future decision making that would be required around pensions. That is quite a startling statistic and we would hope to see progress through consumers’ engagement and understanding, and then using dashboards to be able to point people through to different forms of advice and guidance. In relation to dashboards, the requirement on us is pretty clear. We have acted as swiftly as we can, setting out the rules very early for mandatory connections and setting out the rules early on private commercial dashboards. I am hoping that this will support the broader system of work that we are carrying on. There is targeted support, which was touched on in the earlier panel, where we are looking at how to change the regulatory framework to help people be able to access regulated financial advice and different forms of guidance and support that will drive greater engagement, which should support overall growth and competitiveness as well.

In terms of the regulator, I share that view. We support that growth objective and we have also replied to No. 10. Dashboards are a critical part of delivering this data quality and innovation throughout the marketplace. We have recently announced our innovation hub. Innovation is happening throughout the superfunds products that are being offered and this all goes to us. The common critical feature of all that is data quality, which dashboards are going to shine a light on and help improve throughout this.

Our primary aim is to help people to do everything we expect and to meet our expectations, but we stand ready to use our powers. I work very closely with our executive director in Compliance and Enforcement. Lucy, you have worked very closely on this. Do you want to expand on the detail?

Yes, that is right. We set out a compliance and enforcement strategy, which sets out exactly how we will approach compliance and enforcement. We consulted on this with industry and reflected their feedback. As David said, our primary ambition is to resolve the issues before they happen, but obviously we stand ready to take action where there is wilful and reckless non-compliance. We do have powers available to us to do that. Just to pick up on a point around those smaller schemes, we recognise that what works for a large master trust may not work for a 100-person scheme administered in-house by the payroll team of an employer. We are going to be doing some work very early on to talk to a sample of those schemes to understand what specific needs they have and what they need from us to help them comply, so that we can feed that into our work. Our approach to communication will evolve. Once we hit the October 2026 deadline, we will look at the people who are not connected and understand why. The simple example is that they just did not prepare—that is a relatively straightforward case—but it could be that there were challenges with capacity in the industry. We will consider everything case by case and be pragmatic. We would be happy to send you a copy of our compliance and enforcement policy if that is helpful.

Thank you. Can I follow up on that small trust issue? It does seem a little bit of an inequity in terms of the challenges they are facing, given what we heard in the earlier panel about digitisation and so on. Exactly when will you be engaging with them? You will not wait until the October 2026 deadline, will you? You will be finding out their needs and what support they could do with to make sure that the inequity is addressed?

That is right. What we call medium schemes are due to start connecting from January 2026. We will be talking to them this year to understand their needs. As David has said, we have written to all schemes in scope of dashboards already, at least a couple of times. We have webinars, we have guidance, we have a checklist that can help people prepare for dashboards, and we are talking to the administrators of those small schemes. We are already looking at them, it is just that we will go into more depth so we can make sure that our guidance offering, effectively, is fit for purpose as they get ready.

Fantastic.

If I can just add to that on data quality, we have already started—last year—three phases of work to go out and test data quality with all the firms. The first phase is basic data quality hygiene. Do they measure the data and report it to us? The second phase, which we are going to be starting shortly, is the matching of personal data ahead of the connection next year, so that we can test and help the industry get all the matching data correct. Then the third phase is value data. That is making sure that they are returning good quality, recent value data so that members can use that and make decisions.

That is targeting the smaller schemes?

Yes.

Fabulous. Wonderful.

It is across the piece.

Across them all.

Yes, that is right. Because of the way our landscape is, the majority of schemes connecting are in those smaller scheme categories. Yes, they will be in scope.

That builds on the foundations that have already been set with PASA as well.

Thank you. That is very helpful.

Good morning. If I can just build on the questions of David a moment ago, the FCA will be responsible for regulating the dashboard operators, and you have highlighted the standards that you have published around operators and what their compliance is going to be. I am conscious of the concerns that were highlighted in the last panel, and I am conscious that you are trying to strike a balance between consumer safeguards and not looking to inhibit operators or put any companies off potentially becoming operators. How confident are you that you have struck the right balance, and what are your processes for evaluating if you are getting that balance right?

Let me start and then Nike may want to come in. In relation to our role for commercial dashboards, Government asked us to make sure that that was a regulated activity. Operators wishing to operate a dashboard are required to seek FCA authorisation. There was a lengthy debate through Parliament as the legislation was being progressed around the scope of services that those dashboards should offer. I know on the previous panel there were concerns raised about how restrictive those initial dashboards would be, looking at transactional services, and it is quite right to say that the commercial dashboards do not have an ability to transact on them. That was a Government decision that was debated at length because of the risk of fraud and scams. It was also debated through the development of the dashboards legislation. Our rules very much seek to strike the right balance, meeting the requirement on us to have the gateway up and running, seeking to allow flexibility for firms, but with the Government steer in the legislation very much in mind. If part of the question is, “How might we expect to see these dashboards evolve in future?” I think it is quite right that dashboards may well evolve. Some of that may require legislative change. The testing element is obviously critical. Our rules, in terms of how we have designed them as the FCA, seek to deliver the Government intention and the legislative requirements, but also allow flexibility for firms. If I go back to what we are hoping that dashboards will do, we are hoping that they will drive better, greater consumer engagement and reduce the number of lost pots that are out there. An estimate from Pensions Policy Institute research in 2024 was 3.3 million pensions not matched to consumers, worth over £31 billion. The way that the working profile has changed, we can expect consumers to have a number of different pots and that number potentially to increase without the ability to track down lost pots. In our consultation, where we set out the rules for the commercial dashboard schemes—we have looked to do that as early as we can. We confirmed the rules in November 2024 because we know that it is important from an industry perspective that people know what the rule set is, so that they can start to think about how to design and evolve their business model around it. I do not know, Nike, if there is anything that you wanted to add.

That is right. The parameters set out in regulations and DWP regulations are that the data is displayed, that you cannot charge a fee and that the dashboard cannot be transactional. Our rules are built around that and took those parameters into account. I would say that there is a lot of opportunity for firms to innovate around the dashboard and think through what supports they can offer consumers, because once that information is displayed, as I have said earlier in the morning, there will be a lot of need to support consumers with their decision making and their thinking. I think our rules leave a lot of room for innovation in that space.

Thank you very much for that. Finally, in addition to some of those points that you have raised there, would you identify any other areas of risk that you are seeking to mitigate?

I will give an example of the scams risk, which was a very live risk that was debated. Some of the concern was that if you allow a straight-through mechanism from a view service through to transacting, scammers could take advantage of that. To give a practical example of how we have taken that into account in our rule set, there is the ability to export data off a dashboard to the consumer and our requirements are that the full pensions reference is not displayed. That is with the aim of trying to make sure that if a scammer was to intercept that, the full details would not be available, such that a scammer could then purport to be that person and take advantage of the data to carry out fraud and scams. That is just a practical example of how we have sought to strike that balance with consumer protection. Also, critically, these dashboards need to have the confidence of consumers from day one because a confident dashboard with secure data, with a good experience on the end of it, will drive that engagement that we are all hoping for.

This is a question for the FCA in particular. With regard to prospective dashboard operators, how much interest have you seen in developing and operating dashboards? What feedback are you getting?

We surveyed when we produced our consultation, and we think we have 15 or so entities that are very serious about creating a dashboard. That might not sound like a very large number but I think that would be a material contribution to the overall landscape.

Do you think that every supplier will ultimately have their own dashboard, or not?

My instinct is that many of the larger firms think about this as part of their overall service offering, maybe as something complementary to the pension provision that they already provide at the moment.

We talked a bit earlier about the decision to prioritise the MoneyHelper dashboard. Commercial, private sector dashboards are perhaps some way off. From your point of view, when do you think we can expect to see them?

The decision on launch date very much sits with the Government. If I talk about the FCA role, we will have an authorisation gateway, so firms will need to apply to us for authorisation. As I said, we have already set out as much as we can around the rule set. There are some technical standards that would be required to be confirmed from the pensions dashboard programme and from others before we can open that authorisation gateway, and I know firms are keen to have that clarity so that we can open an authorisation gateway. We will have 12 months to process those applications to come within our regulatory remit, and I would look to be able to open that gateway as soon as we can, once all the pieces of the jigsaw are in place.

What is your impression of when they might deliver, from your conversations?

I think that is a question for Government, in terms of the launch date. I know the priority, as has been well explained, has been to launch the MoneyHelper dashboard first and, critically, testing the connections. This will be nothing without successful connection and without successful data. Half of our 150 firms will be connecting from April this year. That gives us a very good lead-in to be able to surface it, if there are any issues from that date.

Thank you. Finally, the design standards for dashboards, which are going to be set by the PDP and which dashboard operators must comply with, are going to sit alongside your own rules. Compliance with these standards will be monitored every 12 months by independent auditors. Will you have any role in this layer of regulation?

We expect that we will get information about ongoing compliance and then there will be, clearly, a materiality threshold we have to apply in following that through with firms, but our primary responsibility is in relation to compliance with our own requirements.

Thank you. That concludes the questions that we have, unless there are any final points that you would like to make to the Committee.

The industry has achieved a lot, I would say. Data quality is key. At the Pensions Regulator we have this vision of industry leveraging data and technology, and dashboards are going to shine a light on that. If you read our data strategy that was released yesterday, this is all connected and dashboards are a key feature.

Thank you. We will look forward to reading that.

I have one final point. As I have said before, dashboards are significant for us in driving consumer engagement, reducing the number of consumers with lost pots, and ultimately helping people to be signposted through to other forms of support, advice and guidance so that they can make more informed decisions around pensions. We know that consumers find pensions complex. We are doing much broader work in the pension space and in terms of advice and guidance because we want to see consumers being able to make more informed decisions. Dashboards by themselves will not deliver it but dashboards are an important part of this ecosystem of reform, which is ultimately seeking to make sure that consumers have the information available that they need to then make informed decisions with pensions, quite critical decisions for life.

Thank you so much. Again, a very useful session. Thank you. We will switch to our final panel. Witnesses: Oliver Morley, Iain Patterson and Kim Webb.

Good morning. It is a pleasure to welcome our third panel for this pensions dashboard session. Perhaps we could start with some introductions.

Thank you, Chair. My name is Iain Patterson and I am the senior responsible owner for the PDP programme.

Good morning. My name is Kim Webb and I am the programme director for the programme.

Good morning, Chair. I am Oliver Morley and I am chief executive of the Money and Pensions Service.

Thank you. Again, a very warm welcome to you. I am going to kick off. We know that the Pensions Dashboard Programme has been reset a number of times and specifically in 2023 after the DWP identified some delivery problems. The issues were set out in the NAO report recently. To provide some context, can you remind us what went wrong and what changes were made as part of the reset?

Thank you very much for inviting us here today to talk about the progress we have made. It is important to understand that there has been some significant change in the programme more widely to make sure that we came out of reset, including the fact that for the most part we are a new team, making sure that we have the skills and capability right the way across the programme to implement what you have probably already seen is a complex and challenging programme. I will hand over to Kim to give a bit more context as to how we moved out of reset.

As Oliver says, PDP is a hugely complex digital programme that needs to be delivered safely and securely. It needs to support the connection of thousands of pension schemes of different shapes and sizes, involving millions of member records. As with any large programme, delivery challenges and risks emerge, and the issue that we had with the programme and the reason why it went into reset is that a number of these risks all materialised at the same time: a lack of capabilities and experience, the technical solution had not been built or had not been completed, and the connection journey just was not ready. This led to an independent assessment that pulled out these issues. In late 2022, MaPS reported to DWP that it was going to be unable to meet the original legislative deadline of October 2025. DWP then commissioned its own review, which led to a recommendation for reset. I was then commissioned or appointed as the reset director by DWP, and I was later asked to stay as programme director by MaPS. That has been a positive thing for the programme because it has enabled continuity. Also, from my perspective, I have been able to see the programme turn around into successful delivery, which is where we are today. I am pleased to say that we are in a very different space today and I am confident that we are on track for success.

Do you feel that you have the right team and the right skills and experience now? Oliver mentioned it was a relatively new team. Do you feel you have the skillset that you need to be able to deliver on the new timetable?

The changes that we made during the reset broadly fall into three different categories. The first is that we addressed the capability gaps in the team. During the reset period itself we recruited 38 people across a range of digital delivery, commercial management and project delivery skills. This enabled us to tackle the issues that had been identified and work collectively on the resolution plans. The second area of change that we focused on was strengthening the senior leadership team. That included the appointment of Iain as our Senior Responsible Owner. What we also did was to look at the governance arrangements and how we could strengthen the level of critical friends and subject-matter experts at the key boards, so that we could create more challenge, scrutiny and assurance but also facilitate the sharing of lessons learned. The third area that we focused on in reset was strengthening the relationship with our supplier. That has involved moving to a much more collaborative way of working alongside more robust commercial management arrangements. The totality of these changes that we addressed means that we have a very strong, resilient, credible team and we are confident that we can move forward in a positive way.

I wonder if you want to describe the oversight you have from DWP, whether it has provided the right level of oversight given the nature of the relationship between yourselves and DWP? I do not know, Oliver, if you want to take that one.

Absolutely. We, as a team, have a very close relationship with DWP. I think it is important to note that it participated very closely in the reset process. It is important to note that one of the things the NAO report more widely said was that where a project is going wrong you stop, you pause and you take a reset and consider how you are going to move this programme into a more positive place. I was last in front of this Committee—different membership but this Committee—in my role as chief executive of the PPF. I was very excited about the possibility of getting dashboard up and running, MaPS more widely but in particular dashboard. Since I have taken over as chief executive, I have to say the relationship has been really positive. Our engagement is good and DWP is directly involved in our programme board. I would say there is a fairly consistent engagement, to the extent that I took the Permanent Secretary through dashboard on Monday as well, just to make sure that we were engaged and close across the board. I would say positive and a good turnaround story.

I know, Oliver, you have only been in post for—

For a year now.

—a year, so not that long. It may be a difficult question to answer, but in hindsight do you think that MaPS was the right organisation to take the pension dashboard programme on?

I do. I do not think it was a fundamental issue with the Money and Pensions Service as a place for dashboard. In fact, when you consider MaPS in the round, strategically the MoneyHelper website, our own capabilities around delivering financial help to people who need it, arguably pension dashboard is exactly the right place for it. It was just making sure we had the capability to deliver, and I think the NAO report is fair in saying that we just did not.

Thank you all for coming. Pension schemes and providers now have to connect to the dashboard ecosystem by October 2026. The guidance sets out a series of deadlines by which the Government would like different cohorts to connect to avoid causing chaos and too many choosing to connect close to the final deadline. How confident are you that most schemes and providers will connect in line with the guidance? If they do not, what will happen?

We had some very good news on that today. Iain, do you want to take us through that?

Yes, three of the 19—it was 20 but one of them consolidated—volunteer participants have completed their full end-to-end testing and are fully now connected to the architecture. That is really positive news. The cohorts are logically—for the reasons I think you heard earlier—a mixture of large organisations and ISPs that are hoovering up some of the other organisations. They have over 90% of the total pension population so the vast amount will be connected and we are highly confident of their connection pace. We are also accelerating, if you like, through the lessons around how to connect people in a better and more confident way. There were some early starters, and obviously we learnt through those. It is very much test and learn at that stage but we are very confident we will hit the dates.

Can I add as well that we are working very closely with the regulators, who I think you just heard from? The regulators sit on our programme board. Together we will be reporting on where we expect to be with connections and where we actually are with connections so that we have the opportunity to take quick action if we think there is some deviation. I am pleased that we have the right working relationships and the right systems in place.

That is good to hear. How are the other trials progressing?

Trials for, sorry?

Sorry, the connection trials. You have three connected at the moment out of the 19. Are you still conducting trials in terms of the others that are not fully connected yet? How are they going?

Yes, they are in the process. They have all registered. There are several stage gates they go through, including the crypto elements to make sure it is secure. They are all on there in one form or the other but three of them have completed that journey end to end.

It is not a trial; once they are on, they are on, so they are connected.

What are the main challenges still facing the programme? Do you envisage any circumstances in which the October 2026 deadline will not be met?

With any digital programme, of course, we may well face issues in the road ahead, but we are very much taking a test and learn approach to how we continue to move forward with the programme. We have built a very strong, capable and resilient team. This is enabling us to apply test and learn, learn very quickly and be able to resolve issues as they surface. At this stage, given the progress we have made with connections so far and the number of the organisations that are pre-advanced in their connection journeys, we are very confident that we are going to be in a position for all the pension providers and schemes to have connected by 31 October 2026. There is risk, but we are confident that we are managing it and we are in a good place.

With the MoneyHelper dashboard, the Government announced last year that that would be prioritised over the commercial dashboards. You have recently outlined plans for testing that dashboard on consumers. I am wondering if that testing has started yet.

Yes. The short answer is yes, we are testing it. The overall design of MoneyHelper dashboard is consumer focused. The range of consumer testing is already quite considerable but is ramping up. I would like also to offer to the Committee a session in which you can see MoneyHelper dashboard now, as well as a separate invitation. The amount of work we have already done in consumer testing is considerable, but we have much more to do. Certainly, as we move forward and start to move into private beta and then wider beta as well, well before October 2026, we will be able to take the public through the dashboard and get them using it properly.

We are going through significant testing through the summer of this year. It is important that we are fundamentally coming from a citizen-centric, consumer point of view. There was quite a lot of work done in 2022, quality research, around the trust in the brand, if you like, of having the Crown and the Government site over and above anything else because citizens just felt that was a safe place to go to view their personal data. As Oliver has said, we have the site and we have connected that site to the actual digital architecture itself so we can see each other and communicate. It is important that we begin that testing with live data so people can see their pensions when they go on board. We are looking to get as many people on board as possible through the summer because then we can understand and gauge their reactions and what the onward journeys may look like to complete the service.

Are there any issues or insights from the testing you have done that you can share with us?

There is a lot of detail in terms of what people expect from a dashboard. People are universally interested and engaged. At the moment, obviously, when we are taking people through it we are using dummy data so they are not seeing their actual information. I am sure we will come on to adequacy in a little bit more detail. However, it already starts them answering questions around, “Do I have enough? I didn’t know I had all those pensions,” and that kind of thing, so there is quite a lot of information that is coming back. The other element of the research that is important is the language that is used. Given the MoneyHelper dashboard is intended for everyone, but in particular those most in need, it is making sure that we have a way of translating what can be abstruse and difficult pensions language into something that we can all understand.

I will just add to that. The other key here is that MoneyHelper points them directly to where the guidance is as well. There is no coming out of there to something completely different and that is helpful.

We seamlessly lead them into the MaPS guidance services as a whole so they have a way through from the pensions dashboard into our own guidance service.

What information is on there that consumers can access and how accurate will that be?

As I said, I would love to show you and it might be better in that format because you will be able to see. Effectively, you will be able to see your DC pension, your state pension. You will be able to see your expected income that you will be able to get from that. In the DC case, where there is a pot, you will be able to see the scale of the pot. You will be able to see the schemes that have not necessarily been able to get a match because of possible issues; for example, a change of address and all that kind of thing. You will need to contact a pension provider because, based on the National Insurance number, we think you have a match but we just need to make sure. You will be able to see, under certain circumstances, if a scheme is present but is not necessarily connected, which obviously in the early stage when we are taking people through you will be able to see as well. There is a lot of information. Probably the best way to talk about it is to demonstrate it, to be honest.

I appreciate it is not really early days, but it is early days. How do you see the site developing and evolving over time; for example, the things we have talked about in terms of whether you could get to a stage where people could increase their contributions through the site?

I know the regulator pointed out that this is not a space for transactions. However, I would say from a wider perspective that there are policy opportunities that are inherent when everyone can see their pension, which should be exciting for everyone. It is not, for me, just the question of transactions. Something as simple as being able to change your address in one place in all your pension schemes would be a major step forward for a lot of people. Going back to the point around test and learn, it is making sure that we are in a position—both in statutory and policy terms but also technically—to be able to iterate. That, for me, is the real possibility inherent in pensions dashboard.

I would add that when we start the consumer testing in the summer it will be interesting to observe how citizens receive that information, what they then do with that information and the choices they will be thinking through. That is certainly something we will want to explore and understand better as we start to scale up with consumer numbers.

We will be feeding that information back out through to the industry we are working closely with and through to regulators so we are all sharing that view. I think that will help with some of the conversations you may have had around commercial and private sector dashboards as well.

Before I move on to commercial dashboards, the design standards and how the data will be presented to the consumer, how far along are we in making sure we understand how the data will be presented to the customer?

MoneyHelper has already been through what it calls the alpha assessment, which is Government digital standards. That came through with I think two points that needed to be made. I think there is only one now that is outstanding. Although we are not regulated the same way, there are very strict guidelines in presentation format and the digital service and social inclusion and those types of things within the Government digital standards array. We are going back through that beta assessment probably mid to late next year, before we go live. That will be a beta assessment.

In terms of how that data is presented, we have obviously heard from previous panels that pension adequacy is going to be a real problem for a number of people who are going to access the dashboard. Has that been understood, about how we present that information in a way in which people can immediately get some support if they need to and that it does not create a real issue from people worrying immediately about pension adequacy? What safeguards will be put in place?

It has been considered but it will really be brought out through the beta testing this summer.

It will come out in a significant way. Again, it goes back to this point around the MaPS integration, particularly on MoneyHelper dashboard. We are building effectively a support model for pension dashboard that is built off our own Pension Wise capability that already exists. Certainly, our expectation is we will be able to deal at scale with some of the queries that come from pension dashboard, both around adequacy and more widely around, for example, taking commutation or that kind of thing. We expect to be able to make sure that we can provide onward journeys, and certainly adequacy will be part of that discussion.

When do you think the commercial dashboards could become available to the general public? What value do you think they will bring to the overall pension dashboard marketplace?

We are currently running the commercial dashboard probably called pre-discovery going into the discovery phase. That is already doing that with the people who have the vested interest in it and with the regulator’s presence as well so we can understand more about what it is they want to do, the reasons behind it and how that will actually work for them. That is very early days. It has only been running since the beginning of the year. We have further workshops towards the end of this month on that as well. It is difficult to speak with any certainty around that data. As you can gather, I am trying not to go around in circles on it. Realistically, we have to take the lessons from the MoneyHelper dashboard first and a single dashboard point. Like I said before, when people start to look at this and you have everything running at once, there will be multiple dashboards they will be looking at. That is a lot of contact and onward journeys to be managed. There is an awful lot of testing we have to do across that as well. Citizens may get confused. They may be looking at one dashboard or seek to get a better result from a different dashboard. What will manifest from that are several points of contact back into the pension providers so they could be inundated on those numbers. Therefore, it is best to go forward with one and take the lessons learned from that, run the proper discovery on what the commercial or private sector dashboards could look like and what it will mean and then we can better articulate and move forward to what that will actually come to in practice and how it will work.

Thank you. You have brought out the connectivity between a commercial dashboard and how the service that we need to get delivered will interoperate. The challenge going forward: who do you think is going to be responsible to try to bring those parties together? What do we need to do to plan for this market with lots of dashboards running at the same time?

We will initially get all the analysis together to understand what that will look like and then we will have to see where that will best be placed in conjunction with DWP. I think that will be fair to say.

I reiterate the commitment to commercial dashboards. We see them as being a fundamental part of this ecosystem. One thing about PDP is it has been built from the ground up to be able to provide an environment for commercial dashboards. I think that has added complexity, but it is the right thing to do to make sure the industry as a whole is engaged. There is a real benefit from MoneyHelper dashboard going first, which is that it shows some of the issues around security and safety and some of the real consumer challenges that might be out there. It allows us and the regulators, and indeed the industry, to get a bit more awareness of exactly how consumers are going to react to the dashboard. I do not want to be pre-emptive, and I know Ministers would not want to be pre-emptive, around a commercial dashboard launch date. Our intent is to certainly maintain momentum and surprise positively on MoneyHelper dashboard in terms of delivery. Once we have that delivering at scale, then we will be in a good place to be able to talk about definite dates for a commercial dashboard launch and to work with the industry to make sure that we are ready.

Do you anticipate that the commercial dashboards will have real scope to innovate and move the landscape forward?

Yes. I might be the only person in this room with a Norwegian pension. I have direct experience of running a financial services business in Norway. You might have your entire life with one financial service provider in Norway. It is a much simpler pensions landscape. When you look at the level of innovation, simply delivering a commercial dashboard in this industry with that complexity is a massive amount of innovation in itself. When they have launched commercial dashboards and start integrating with other financial services it will drive so much innovation in this space.

That is useful to hear. With your personal experience from abroad, the previous panel indicated that most people will utilise the commercial dashboards over a period of time. Is that your expectation, that that will be how the market moves?

Going to some of the statistics that Richard has spoken to us before on, I think the balance will be slightly different in the UK because of this issue around financial services fragmentation. MoneyHelper will probably represent a higher proportion. It is very difficult to predict exactly how much will be going by MoneyHelper dashboard versus commercial dashboards. However, it is equally true to say that the scale will still be very significant on either side of that particular aisle.

Before we move on to the final question, I wonder if you are able to help us in terms of the first panel and some of the comments there. For example, how do you work with industry? I am very conscious that Brian Byrnes, the Moneybox representative, indicated that there is a delay in the private sector development of dashboards because of lack of certainty.

That is fair to say. We have come through a reset. The fact is we have a reset programme and we now have connections coming on board, which is the primary element to focus on. I think there is some ambiguity to the Minister’s statement around the commitment of that and I was aware of soundings in the industry. We work very closely with the industry—we have a pensions dashboard advisory group that is made up of different components of it—and closely with the ABI as well across the insurance side. We have a dedicated principal who talks to the industry, who is from the industry. They are involved with us all the way through and, I think it is fair to say, through the connection process. We are very open and transparent. We publish everything that we are doing around the standards and so forth. There is good communication. There is good stakeholder engagement. It is fair to say that I do understand why people are nervous around the commercial dashboards piece. We are only going through discovery at the moment, and I think most people who are interested in those dashboards are attending those workshops. We will have to build trust and certainty as we go forward. However, there is a commitment, as Oliver was saying, that we are going to go down that route.

I hope that reassures everybody. Thank you. Is that every couple of months you have those?

The PDAG is every month.

Thank you.

Thank you. I would like to particularly focus on Pension Wise for this last question. Oliver Morley, we have recently corresponded, so thank you for your helpful correspondence on this. While there is clear, demonstrable evidence that Pension Wise is well received, how can you drive greater cut-through? What I am fearful of is further slippage in the dashboard offer so there is the need to ensure that you are reaching out to people as much as possible through the Pension Wise service. It is the “so what?” stuff. While people may be satisfied and so forth with the service, what difference has it actually made to our pension service out in the community? Particularly with people who are accessing their pension pots for the first time, are you able to evidence that this has resulted in a more appropriate approach to a pension pot?

We can provide lots of evidence around Pension Wise and being able to have useful appointments and appointments that make a difference in terms of people making some quite difficult decisions, particularly under difficult financial circumstances, on whether they should take out a lump sum or not, for example. It is worth saying that some of the scale of, for example, MoneyHelper, our consumer-facing website where Pension Wise sits, is significant. We have around 8 million visitors to MoneyHelper so we will be in a good place to be able to make sure that pension dashboard as a whole lands well. When you combine money and pensions appointments, we have a significant number of appointments that are being completed consistently. In the last financial year we delivered around 120,000 appointments. We certainly expect to be able to deliver on those KPIs. Most importantly, given pension dashboard is a digital service, it is also making sure that our digital tools are up to scratch and able to deliver and drive people through. It has always fascinated me with pensions the degree to which people are very much open to or wish to engage with different channels depending on their circumstances. We still run face-to-face Pension Wise appointments. We still make sure people have that option. It is also a world in which some people just do not want to talk to anyone and are quite happy to do all their financial consultation and help directly with a digital tool or more widely. There are plenty of options. We want to make sure we maintain those options and we want to make sure we deliver them productively and at scale. To have that mix, for dashboard, is basically carrying on with the approach we have been taking and are building with Pension Wise now.

Thank you. That concludes our questions to the panel. I do not know if there are any comments you would like to make. Please do reflect back from the previous two panels as well.

As I say, I re-open the invitation for this Committee to see MoneyHelper dashboard and see how it works.

I, personally, would very much appreciate that, lovely. Look, you have a captive audience so, yes, we will make arrangements to do that at your convenience. Thank you so much for your help. That concludes the business of the Committee today.